Putting the Indian Army's desire to import assault rifles in perspective

The much higher figures reported for IA's purchase plans are therefore either incorrect or point to the massive royalty payments that international arms manufacturers are seeking for technology transfer obligations. It is at this point that IA needs to ask itself whether replacing an INSAS rifle costing between Rs 15-20,000 at last count with an imported rifle quoted at 6-8 times that figure is really worth the trouble. Do note, that the civilian version of the Beretta ARX-160, the ARX-100, retails at a starting price of $1950 in the United States.

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Now imported designs don't always fare as well as they are touted to under Indian conditions and product support from foreign sources can also be iffy. For instance, the Home Ministry's import of over 34000 Beretta MX4 storm sub-machine guns hasn't exactly panned out too well with numerous defects and corrosion marks being found in delivered batches leading to disquiet amongst Border Security Force troops issued with these weapons.

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There is no denying that the INSAS rifle family needs development but then that also falls within the lookout of IA itself, which is a key stakeholder in the entire process. As Major General (retd.) Bhupendra Yadav, who has long years of experience with the Department of Defence Production (DDP) in the Ministry of Defence and has a PhD in Operations Management to boot, says 'At the time of introduction in the 1990s it was universally felt that we had a good design on our hands.'

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'The issues with the INSAS are known to be on the production side of things,'he continues.'Even there the defects have been identified and should simply have beenrectified with the Army taking the necessary initiative to make the other stakeholders work on this path.After all what exactly are the Master General of Ordnance(MGO) and Director General of Quality Assurance (DGQA) there for anyway? The Army can't suddenly take a standoffish attitude on this and just look abroad.' General Yadav adds emphatically.For those who came late, on OFB's special/extended board are included the MGO and DGQA who are senior serving officers appointed by IA specifically'to represent the users and their interest on quality aspects.' These two gentlemen are supposed get the job done on quality control aspects related to production by OFB.

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As per General Yadav, the time already spent in the process of 'downselecting' imported types since 2011, was more than adequate to develop the next iteration of the INSAS and fix issues with it provided there was sufficient will. '3-4 years gives you enough time to upgrade the INSAS to satisfactory levels,' General Yadav remarks. Although hypothetical, a re-look can be taken at something like the Excalibur, a modernized development based on the INSAS which IA has been rather lukewarm too.

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Interestingly, as yet another import tender drags along, one finds articles beginning to make their way into the media exhorting the military to expedite the process, such as this piece in the Hindu the other day (The big deal about the Armyâ€™s small arms - The Hindu). But such articles often make somewhat outlandish claims about performance of indigenously developed weapons that naturally does not go down well with DRDO. Indeed in reply to the Hindu article which claimed that the INSAS apparently doesn't do so well in the Himalayas and hot deserts, DRDO had this to say.

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'The trials covered all possible scenarios that a gun of this kind(i.e. INSAS) could encounter or could be imagined to encounter and included sub-zero temperatures at the world's highest located battlefields, the most humid wetlands as well as extreme hot deserts. The gun is available in four variants namely rifle and light machine gun, each in fixed and fold-able butt versions, and offers the option of attaching an Under Barrel Grenade Launcher (UBGL) for launching high explosive grenades upto 400 metres away. The gun makes extensive use of engineering plastics and high strength alloys to withstand boththe rigors of the battlefield as well as varied climates.By 2010, more than a million such guns and more than 1.5 billion rounds of ammunition had been produced and supplied to India's armed forces. It is important to note that while the project cost was merely Rs 3.5 crores, INSAS system had turned over business worth more than Rs 6000 crores by 2010 itself.'

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There's no denying that the return on investment on indigenous weapons produced in bulk can be very significant owing to much lower developmental costs. This is precisely one of the reasons why indigenous options in general tend to be cheaper than foreign ones. It should also be noted, that IA wants the very same OFB units to produce the final downselected imported design that have had quality control issues with the INSAS line. It really begs the question as to exactly how OFB units will produce these new next gen imported designs requiring superior machining and finer tolerances to IA's exacting quality standards when they apparently did not always do the same when it came to the INSAS?

As much as i agree with the above I am a firm believer of privatization of the Indian defence manufacture, not taking the hardwork put by the OFB the output is not enough. For Ex :

India designed the 105 Indian Field Gun with in the 60's (correct me if i am wrong ) and after the order was completed did they do any followup development NO they simply sat on it and imported Bofors gun in the "1980's" no doubt it worked wonderfully and played a greater role in the Kargill but India could have developed that a gun like Bofors if they had involved private sector . let me explain if they would have let the private companies develop the gun they would have further invested in R&D and developed and improved the 105mm IFG.
similarly INSAS was with private companies they would have improve it to the latest standard and also India is the only country which doesnot have its own designed pistol they License porduce a ww2 era gun. not just that since i have come from a Public sector background where my Dad is a retired employiee of a Defence PSU and i did my training in that PSU post Engineering i know how the R&D and the production works.

Conclusion : As-long as the private sector is not involved the Indian Defence Market will be dominated by Foreign companies and we will be worlds largest importer and never be self sufficient in defence production

One more great example/way of defaming/downgrading our own INSAS.
IA wants to take no responsibility . They are the consumersthey are not responsible for it at all...
They are like a teenage child who once wants something goes to all extent to get that without thinking of any consequences.
They are no different from IAF there bros.... If they get foreign branded good we also want foreign....

I don't see the deal done in near future for multi calibre rifle, the lazy approaches of Army, DRDO, OFB and MOD is making everybody suffer.

Why not DRDO collaborate with outside firms and gives us a wonderful machine.
Why not make this like The ongoing Howitzer programmes are going.
Why not give opportunity to private sector for producing the Riffle rather giving it again to same cock roach.
Everybody is lazy, and we will suffer. .

1- If IA looking for replacement of INSAS with Colt,Beretta rifles which are fully Automatic 30 round unlike the semi auto INSAS so does it mean IA is shifting form its earlier strategy of not giving a fully automatic weapon to its infantry for the fear of running out of ammo in middle of fight ? If yes then why they never changed the 20 round semi auto bottleneck in there INSAS first ?

2- @Kunal jee the modification that is being suggested for INSAS like adding rail ,fore grip ,to me it looks just cosmetic to me the bigger design flaw what looks to me is using AK style thin dust cover & adding the aiming sight over it now every time the cover opened the rifles looses its zeroing ,Ak designers thoughtfully moved the aiming sight forward due to that reason only .

3- I too agree with the point that giving super expensive imported rifle to an infantry would not be so fruitful then adding good rifle scope over current rifle .

INSAS 1B1 upgrade looks great, hope army accepts it than foreign rifle.
i read somewhere that all the entries failed the tests or trials in both cold and hot (desert) terrain and now still they want to test them in muddy one.
either news is wrong or those who r testing them are still receiving under table money to give their verdict and accept a foreign made rifle.

time to support indian made and developed goods, totally agree with this view of DRDO, let foreign vendors complete with INSAS..or any indian made military equipment.

1. The GSQR prepared for INSAS back in early 90s was in burst also semi auto, Burst is useful as its good for saving ammo and providing adequate suppressive fire, Full auto is something carbine needed as of now the requirement is selected for Multi-cal is fullauto which is also present in DRDO Multi-cal, It also feature 30rnd magazine ..

2. 1B1`s dust cover is not thin, Its fixed and sturdy and thick, Scopes on it does not move after attaching it, AK dust cover is thinner than 1B1`s ..

3. 1B1 have great potential for upgrades, This should have been done long back within Indian Pvt firms ..

1- If IA looking for replacement of INSAS with Colt,Beretta rifles which are fully Automatic 30 round unlike the semi auto INSAS so does it mean IA is shifting form its earlier strategy of not giving a fully automatic weapon to its infantry for the fear of running out of ammo in middle of fight ? If yes then why they never changed the 20 round semi auto bottleneck in there INSAS first ?

2- @Kunal jee the modification that is being suggested for INSAS like adding rail ,fore grip ,to me it looks just cosmetic to me the bigger design flaw what looks to me is using AK style thin dust cover & adding the aiming sight over it now every time the cover opened the rifles looses its zeroing ,Ak designers thoughtfully moved the aiming sight forward due to that reason only .

3- I too agree with the point that giving super expensive imported rifle to an infantry would not be so fruitful then adding good rifle scope over current rifle .

The problem here is that IOF has monopoly on small arms... take that away and thing will improve. I am not saying that you let foreign companies in, but instead let the domestic companies do R&D and come up with a product...
There are already companies that have produced gun parts for companies like IWI, Sarsilarz, SIG and Meprolight.

INSAS 1B1 upgrade looks great, hope army accepts it than foreign rifle.
i read somewhere that all the entries failed the tests or trials in both cold and hot (desert) terrain and now still they want to test them in muddy one.
either news is wrong or those who r testing them are still receiving under table money to give their verdict and accept a foreign made rifle.

time to support indian made and developed goods, totally agree with this view of DRDO, let foreign vendors complete with INSAS..or any indian made military equipment.

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+1
This is quite right. I have heard that the foreign arm makers pay millions of dollars to "persuade" our government to buy their arms.(For eg there is a rumor that Sukhoi-30/Tejas is better than Rafale and yet it was neglected) I am not saying that we should not buy foreign arms if they are of good quality. However Indian arms should be properly compared with foreign ones. Indigenization should be India`s no. 1 priority. Also the GOI should look into the underhand money that is being received by the dishonest officials.

Look at the .32 revolver & pistol being produced by Kanpur & Cossipore, IOF respectively & compare the finish with an original Smith & Wesson or a Webley & Scott.

The work by IOF is shoddy & crude.

Without self pride in what we do, IOF will keep producing crude , half finished toys for boys. What we need is an ethos of innovation and some one from the core users to head production in IOF.

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Dude "necessity is mother of all invention" ,a country like India where guns for civilians is still consider taboo & the laws permits possession of weapons only to rich ,influential or mafia people only . When OFB knows very well that they are only shop who could sell the guns in the country then why would they care about quality if they can sell there shit for high cost .

Dude "necessity is mother of all invention" ,a country like India where guns for civilians is still consider taboo & the laws permits possession of weapons only to rich ,influential or mafia people only . When OFB knows very well that they are only shop who could sell the guns in the country then why would they care about quality if they can sell there shit for high cost .